Ray White Queensland is set for success

The full day training session is the second of three high performance training days for the Ray White Queensland network throughout the year, with yesterday’s training making up the Set portion of the series.

CEO of Ray White Queensland Jason Andrew (pictured below) opened the day, saying Ready Set Go offered tremendous value for those in the state’s network looking to grow and succeed.

“Ray White Queensland stands for best in market and Set epitomises that,” he said.

“Set has brought together some of our best people from throughout the network, to share their learnings and leave them equipped for the 2023-24 financial year and the spring selling season.”

Ray White Group managing director Dan White took to the stage to interview renowned principal, Megan Jaffe (pictured at top) of Ray White Remuera in Auckland, the group’s top international office for the last eight years.

“It’s an understatement to say that Megan has redefined what’s possible in our industry as a leader,” Mr White said.

“It really has change everyone’s thoughts about what can be achieved, not only in Ray White, but also across the whole industry.”

In New Zealand's challenging property market, Ms Jaffe has continued to grow her business by relying on data and ensuring her team is putting their clients at the forefront of every transaction.

“I feel really good about this year, I believe we have built a business that’s independent of the market,” she said.

“We can’t guarantee the outcome but we can guarantee the process. Over the last few years, it’s been a real challenge for us in New Zealand but it’s also been tough for the people we’re selling for and those who are buying.

“But we know how to interpret what is happening in the market and tell the truth to the person in front of us. We are bringing microdata through and putting it in the context of the macroeconomic data we're seeing.”

Top business owners Ray White New Farm principal Matt Lancashire and Vivien Yap of Ray White Dalkeith | Claremont (pictured above) gave the agents some insights into how this pair have remained at the top of their game for years.

“Stock levels are down 30 per cent and new listings are hard, everyone knows this,” Ms Yap said.

“Perth has limited stock coming to the market and I am doing a lot of buyer work now. I am working 100 per cent harder right now to find homes to sell. I have never door knocked in my life, and I am finally doorknocking. First I find as much information as I can before I start knocking on the door and I deliver a ‘winter care pack’. And I am handwriting letters and making more calls.”

Mr Lancashire, the king of marketing and media in Australia, gets hundreds of leads a week through his digital, print and social media channels.

His clients spent anywhere between $17,000 to $35,000 on their marketing campaigns which creates the competition for his sellers.

“The Courier Mail is my baby and I focus on it every single week. We secure 5-10 pages every week. But even if you don’t have a newspaper in your market you can still dominate the landscape - even if it’s REA or Domain or social media, mailouts or signboards, You can dominate that,” he said.

“For me, every activity we do we have doubled down and gone harder right now.”

Matt Lancashire was impressed at the effort that Vivien Yap goes to for her community.

“The effort that is required to do what you do is what sets you apart from the rest. It’s ballsy and it’s expensive and it takes effort," Mr Lancashire said.

Ms Yap recently worked with a new local bakery to deliver 5000 packs of Easter buns to the households in her core area.

“I was happy to spend the money on these packs of four buns for every house. It cost me $12000 but I got a listing out of it which more than covered the outlay and I helped a local bakery too. At Christmas I deliver cherries to all our clients, it’s like cherries galore,” Ms Yap said. She also runs a huge Chinese New Year event which is also making an impact on her community.

“I am Chinese, so who better to do that? We have food trucks, and a lion dance and we also strategically did it in an oval surrounded by $3m-$17m houses,” she said.

Both top agents do all their own calls to their database and are strong advocates for the NurtureCloud proptech app.

“We use NurtureCloud religiously,” Mr Lancashire said.

Vivien Yap’s advice to an agent in a ru was to look at yourself in the mirror.

“Ask yourself, would you sell your own house? If you have any doubt then you need to change. Present yourself differently, how you respond to enquiries and ask people around you what you need to do to change. Look at your own bio? Do you look older or younger? Create your own database and don’t give up quickly.

“Everyone is human and everyone is very territorial, so we embrace an open database culture as data is power and knowledge is gold to share with upcoming prospective vendors.”

Olympian and Australian swimming legend Justin Lemberg (pictured above right with Mr McLeod) has had a lot of experience with both success and failure throughout his career. The middle-distance swimmer, who rose to prominence in the 1980s, won a bronze medal in the 400m freestyle at the 1984 Summer Olympics in Los Angeles.

Mr Lemberg now owns a group of McDonald's franchises and joined Ray White chief of strategy (real estate) Mark McLeod to speak about the need for resilience, hard work and most importantly following the process.

Ray White New Farm principal Haesley Cush (pictured above) nailed a riveting goal-setting session.

“You are 62 per cent more likely to achieve a goal if you write it down,” Mr Cush said.

“If you are happy then the business comes but I know this industry is not talent based.

“Talent is overrated. Most of us need to work because the formula works. I have been doing this since 1996 and I decided in the year 2000 that I would surrender to the formula.

“Ray White started his business in 1902. They know the way but so many new agents think they know how to do it better than the group with 10,000. But Ray White has 121 years of learning. Ray wasn’t a dud, he brought his business to Brisbane, Alan grew his business to 30 and Brian ran it up to 1000. Who knows what Dan is going to do?

“People always say they can do it better. Do it our way and add a few things along the way.”

“To be successful in real estate does not take talent.

“We have never been happier to be a franchisee. We are the happiest we've ever been as there are so many benefits to being in our group.”

Ray White Chief Economist Nerida Conisbee (pictured above) said house price growth in Queensland was now firmly entrenched.

“House and unit prices are on the move and all regions are now seeing price growth,” she said.

“Listings are coming up, continuing to increase. We are still seeing prices also increase. The rental market is also starting to show signs of slowing down so you can say that house rents are actually stable.

“House rents remain pretty stable and unit rates have been increasing quite a lot primarily because of international students that are coming to Queensland that's really pushed up the rental market.

“We are seeing a shortage of homes being developed. We had quite low household sizes during the pandemic as lots of people moved out of home to want to share homes which have since disbanded. We also saw record numbers of one person households.

“Onto the lending side, borrowing is back. It seemed to fall off a cliff last year as or even during the past 12 months and really fell to pretty low levels compared to what we saw during the pandemic.”

“Primarily because obviously if interest rates were really high, it was really hard to get through the serviceability buffer that is three per cent in total. After the banks put on a home loan, it's hard for a lot of people to get into.

“But in Queensland we are now starting to see owner occupier lending and also investor lending starting to pick up again and so, good news for the loan market for needs for banks or people that are lending again.”

“But it's pretty stressful for everyone with a big mortgage at the moment. A lot of refinancing is taking place.”

"I get asked all the time which part of Australia represents the best place to invest? And I often say Queensland. Lots of people are moving here and Queensland has incredible opportunities over the next decade.”

“Price growth is helping confidence, but there’s still some nervousness among businesses and consumer confidence is low at the moment. Construction costs shot up in Queensland, nowhere else saw a 30 per cent surge in costs but building materials are starting to pull back and should be resolved soon.”

In the property management session, Ray White Queensland property management business development executive Kate Stewart (pictured above) said everyone in the room needed to be developing themselves to be best in market.

“We are in a competitive market and as property managers, we need to be setting ourselves apart,” she said.

“We need to figure out how we can be the best. We talk about being best in market and whenever I’ve been speaking to someone in the network, I have it in the back of my mind - is the advice I’m giving you best in market? How can I help our property managers be best in market? This is something we need to always be focused on.”

Ray White Mooloolaba and Kawana Waters director James Goldsworthy (pictured above) brought most of his team to Ready Set Go.

“It was wonderful to hear the positivity from Nerida Conisbee about the future of the Queensland market,” he said.

“It was also great to hear from Vivien and Matt, who are leaders in their fields, about how they go back to the basics and do those things well and consistently.

“Making it a priority to address what’s happening in your business and looking into the mirror was a key message I took away from Vivien’s session."